Practicing and teaching experiential therapy deals with the issue
of seeing and being seen. It is a tricky issue where one can miss the
mark by seeing too much or too little. Often it is knowing too much that
gets in the way.

For instance, I'm out on the street one day and see a figure
walking toward me. It is mysterious at first, too far away to be
distinguishable. So, my senses are open. I'm taking in information
on many levels. Then I recognize that it is Ralph. Thud! Down comes the
curtain. I'm no longer open, because I know all about Ralph. Ralph
is a boisterous, self-confident kind of guy.

Because I'm confident in the way my imagination habitually
colors Ralph, I miss the little clues that reveal that today Ralph is
not so self-assured. He has just come from the post office where he
picked up a letter telling him his cousin has been killed in Iraq. There
is a held-in, but not so hidden, grief for those who have eyes to see.
My eyes don't see because of my certainty that Ralph does not major
in intimacy or vulnerability.

It is a struggle to find ways to not know too much, to be mindful
and open to the nuances of the present moment. One resource that Ron the
founder of the Hakomi Therapy, put me on to was the book Girl with a
Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier, the story of the famous painter
Vermeer and his celebrated painting by the same name that has also been
made into a movie.

In the story, Griet is a servant who grinds and lays out paints for
Vermeer to use each day. He is working on a painting of a girl in a
scene with a table, pitcher, and map. Griet thinks you should paint what
you see, using the colors you see. So, she is confused when Vermeer does
not order blue paint even though the girl model is clearly wearing a
blue skirt. He starts putting in black where the skirt should go. Then
he uses ocher for the girl's bodice, though it is yellow and black.
He uses grey instead of white for the wall. They are all seemingly false
colors.

Finally, Griet is so flustered that she puts out an ultramarine
color along with the other ones Vermeer has ordered. When he is annoyed
and asks why she has done this, she replies that the girl is wearing a
blue skirt.

Vermeer takes the opportunity to teach her. He opens the window and
asks her what color the clouds are. She responds with, "Why, white,
sir." When he asks again, "Are they?" she adds that there
might be a little grey, and that it might snow. He continues by saying
that she can do better. He asks her to think of her vegetables. Are the
turnips and onions the same white? Suddenly she understands. "No.
the turnip has green in it, the onions yellow."
"Exactly," says Vermeer. "Now look at the clouds
again."

Griet's eyes are open in a new way. She notices that there is
some blue in the clouds, also some yellow and green. She becomes excited
and starts pointing. She had been looking at clouds her whole life, but
she now feels as if she is seeing them in the moment for the first time.

This story inspired renewed sensitivity as well as training
exercises where we invite students to look at each other's faces
and notice first impressions. Then, what is it like to hold the
impression lightly while looking again? If the person appeared strong or
needy overall, can we then be open to letting in the minute signs of the
child behind the appearance, what the person believes is possible and
not possible in the world, what the person is comfortable showing and
not showing, what the person expects or longs for in a relationship with
us? Can we begin to accommodate new information that might or might not
fit our original impression? Can we be, as Fritz Perls once put it, the
bull's-eye the arrow hits every time?

Meister Eckhardt once said that we do not find God by a process of
addition, but by a process of subtraction. Sometimes, like Griet, we can
find one another through a humility that does not presume certainty and
is willing to look more carefully.

Gregory Johanson, MDiv, PhD, LPC, is a Fellow of the American
Psychotherapy Association and a Fellow of the American Association of
Integrative Medicine. He is currently the Director of Hakomi Educational
Resources in Chicago, IL.